“I hate you too,” he said, drawing her close. He rubbed the back of her head as she buried her face in his chest, where his nipple seemed to inject her cheeks with a dye that made them flush.
A cab came. They got inside, she ahead of him because he held the door. And they began to snuggle before the driver had put the Chevy in gear, he leaning against a door, almost horizontally, and she on top of him, sighing as his hand skimmed over her wavy hair, calming her soul like a breeze.
“Is this what it should feel like?” she mumbled, peeling back his T-shirt like a foreskin. As she nuzzled his chest, he pinched a nipple between two fingers and began to suckle her, rocking her, steadying her as the cab bounced out of potholes and swerved to avoid collisions, holding her both hard and soft.
“Should what feel this way?” he asked, wincing but not disturbing her as she pulled on him sharply and clenched him between her teeth, lapping at him hungrily, wanting to nourish her spirit with his essence.
“Should you want a man to mother you?”
“You want me to mother you, sweet girl?”
“Right now, I do,” she said.
“I’ll be your mummy then. Hush, sweetness … go to sleep.”
By the time they reached her apartment she was snoring.
“I’m sorry,” she said when he roused her. “I didn’t mean to doze off. I haven’t hung out in a while.” She yawned. “Oh excuse me.” She reached into her purse. “Here’s my share—”
He patted her hand. “Just cool. It’s okay.”
She opened the door. Something in the mood had changed.
“So we’ll do cookies another time, then,” he told her. He reached into his knapsack for the burlap pouch of coffee.
Sliding across the seat to her he placed one foot on the sidewalk, signaling that he was able if she was willing. She took a step toward him, which raised his hopes, then stumbled, and he grabbed her arm to steady her.
“I think I drank too much,” she said as he stood up. She leaned on him. “I think I need to go inside and get some sleep. Can we get together another time? I wouldn’t be good company tonight.”
She looked up at him, slack-jawed and squinting.
“Okay,” he replied, letting her go, “the next time I’m in town I’ll tell Claire … and we can get together. I wonder what happened to her anyway?”
“What do you mean in town?” she asked, suddenly alert. “You don’t live in New York?”
“I live in Jamaica,” he said, smiling. “And I’m going to London at eight in the morning.”
“Well … call me … whenever … you’re in town,” she replied, trying to hide her disappointment.
“Claire has your number, right?”
He was sitting in the cab now with his feet outside.
“I don’t want Claire to know my business,” she said.
She was squatting on her heels in front of him. She rested her hands on his knees.
“Tell you what, then, let’s make things simpler. So that nobody will have to know anybody’s business, why don’t I give you my address then so you can write to me when you feel like.”
“Let’s make it simpler than that. Call me when you get in. I wanna talk to you.” She dug into her pocketbook and scribbled on a business card. “Here.”
She kissed her palm and patted his face. He watched to make sure she got in safely, then left.
He discovered when he got in that she had written her number—accidentally, he presumed—on one of Lewis’s business cards. And as he sat on the edge of the bed beside the phone, spritzed by the scent of Blanche’s flowers, he felt relieved that he and Sylvia were in separate rooms. For what would it all have been worth in the morning? She was involved. And in a manner of speaking, so was he.
He did not call her. Instead, he wrote her a letter. On his way to the airport, he stopped at her house, and in the orange light of dawn, slipped it beneath her door.
Hungover despite two cups of coffee, Sylvia found the envelope on her way to work and tossed it in her portfolio without reading it, for she thought it was a letter from her landlord, who lived on the street behind her. He often left her correspondence like that, in plain envelopes inscribed with just her name.
Why? she kept asking herself as she made her way to Clark Street, slouching in her skirt suit through the shaded streets. Her pace slowed with each succeeding step, as if the convoy of fellow professionals that trundled by were tapping her strength. Why? Why? Why? The rest of the question refused to be drawn into her mind until she entered the elevator at the subway station. There, compacted in the steel cage that lowered its passengers through the bedrock like old South African miners, she felt the weight of those around her forcing the thought through her intestines, into her belly, up into her throat, to coat the roof of her mouth. Why didn’t he call me? Even just to say goodbye.
She wanted to talk to him. Now. Desperately. About what, she didn’t know.
And as she imagined herself together with him, strolling a beach or sitting under a shade tree along a country road, she told herself that she wouldn’t care. Then she thought some more and decided that she would, knowing—in a way that she could neither describe nor explain, for she had never felt this way before—that he would want to discuss the same things as she, or would at least know how, which was something that she couldn’t say for Lewis, or most of the men she’d been involved with. They were bright men to be sure, but bright in a linear way, like laser beams. Intense. Focused. But Fire’s light had the expansive sprawl of a sunset … diffuse … layered … natural and organic. Lewis and the others had the brightness of the mind, which was accessible to anyone with the right life chances. Fire, though, had the brightness of the soul. Which was a grace. He understood her jokes, related to her references, and shadowed her subtlest shifts in mood. This is the way, she thought, that Billy Strayhorn must have felt when Ellington played his music—like, “Shit, this person can read my mind.”
Last night, for example. In the taxi. When he nursed her. How did he know that she needed that … to be babied … at that moment? And what was it in him that made him sacrifice his own need, to give her the security—as momentary as it was—of belonging, and not necessarily to him, but to something outside herself?
Had it been another man—a strip of faces crossed her mind—there would’ve been a presumption, an insistence even, that the intimacy was about his need and not hers. And as she considered the idea of the laser beam again, she saw that it was related not just to intelligence but to a whole way of being. Which is why the tenderness he showed her was so erotic—it had transcended the needs of the flesh.
As the elevator doors opened and she was swept along the crosswalk and down the steps to the platform, she concluded that Fire had more than the strength of a man. He also had the strength of a woman. A penis as a totem could not fully represent him. For he was more than a giver of pleasure. He was a giver of life. As she thought about this she didn’t feel tired anymore. She wanted to sing now. She wanted to dance. With him. To any song. Fast or slow. However he wanted it.
As the train bumped and rattled beneath the river, she ignored the fetid armpits of the fat man beside her and mused on how nice it was to feel at home with a man. She had never felt such ease with Lewis. But then she had never felt such ease with herself either.
If she’d gone to the show with Lewis, it would’ve been a different experience. His tastes were tethered to jazz and R&B. Everything else, including blues and classical, was intolerable, or at best inoffensive. Which is why they listened to his music more than hers. Her tastes included his. And although she felt guilty, she had to admit it—it was easy for her to step down to his level.
Something had happened at the concert that she hadn’t remembered until now. As she and Fire stood next to each other, close but not touching, they shared a joke without speaking. It was quite a silly joke actually, but telling nonetheless: a woman directed a friend to the bar by pointing with her lips and not
her fingers. Being Caribbean, she and Fire recognized the archetype, so they laughed. Had she been with Lewis she would’ve had to explain it. Then the joke would’ve lost its taste.
As she considered this, she realized that she’d been quietly missing her culture for years. She loved jazz. She loved classical. And the blues and R&B. But she didn’t feel them in the same way she felt some Trenchtown bass bussin her head or some Lavantille steel pan racklin through her bones. She hadn’t dated many men from the Caribbean, and this was an issue she’d never come to terms with, but which she suspected had a lot to do with Syd. And in relationships, she’d always found it easier to collapse into the man’s head-space than to ask him to expand into hers.
When she got to work, her secretary Boogie Boo brought her breakfast. As usual, carrot juice and a bran muffin. This morning she couldn’t have it though. She was in the mood for some cornmeal porridge.
“Syl.”
“Yes, Boogie Boo.”
“You need to be with Virgil in ten minutes.”
She checked her watch. Twelve-fifteen. What had she done all morning? She glanced around her office, a big space with gray carpeting, black cabinets, and stackable chairs piled high with papers. What had she done all day? Nothing. Nothing except think about her weekend. Lewis. Ian. And Fire.
Boogie Boo—it was not her real name but she insisted on being called that—knocked on the door and entered.
“Which Virgil do we have today?” Sylvia asked. “The good one or the bad one?”
Boogie Boo twirled one of her orange braids and wrinkled her upturned nose. Slim-hipped and dark, she was twenty-four and counted among her “things” music/dance/performance poetry/acting/modeling and aerobics instructing. This was just her day job.
“Come on, it’s a Monday. Whadyou think?” she replied, leaning against the door. She was dressed in thrift store crimplene—a sky blue leisure suit—and white platforms to match her nails. “I heard—and I can’t say who told me, so don’t ask, cause you know I’ll tell and that would just be wrong—that he’s really pissed about that New Orleans feature. That whole Congressman DeVeaux thing. Didn’t I tell you it wasn’t gonna fly? But you don’t listen to me. Nobody listens to me around here. Y’all people just don’t like to listen. It’s the man’s magazine. Why argue? He’s the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief, not to mention Führer, Il Duce, and Pope.”
Sylvia sucked her teeth and fanned Boogie Boo away before she made her laugh.
Boogie Boo raised her brows and shrugged. “By the way,” she said, as she was about to leave, “if you’re not gonna have that muffin, can I have it? I have the serious munchies today. I got so fucking blunted this morning, you wouldn’t believe.”
Sylvia took a minute to relax, then went down the hall to the publisher’s office, taking care to announce herself before taking a seat in one of the red leather wing chairs in front of Virgil’s giant oak desk.
Virgil was standing by a huge picture window behind his desk, smoking a cigar and looking out on Rockefeller Center, his hands clasped behind his back, black wool crêpe suit draping from his shoulders, his bald pate swelling out of the collar of his white shirt like a bare bulb extruding from the socket of a plastic lamp. Imperious, he let Sylvia’s greeting hang in the air a bit before acknowledging it. Then he turned around, sat in his chair, balanced his bifocals on his Roman nose, and trained his icy stare on her.
“Everything looks great about the Black New Orleans feature,” he began in his low mumble. Furrows raked his forehead. “Except for one thing—we can’t fuck with Congressman DeVeaux like this. If we run this, niggers’ll lose their minds.”
Niggers. The word made her wince. There were other people who could’ve said it without unnerving her. But not him. The son of an Italian media baron and an African-American opera singer, Virgil Pucci could pass for white—which he’d done until he was thirty-five. Then he reclaimed his blackness when he learned about a federal program designed to open radio and television ownership to minorities. In two years, with the backing of his father, he was in control of twelve FM and eight VHF stations across the country. Five years later he sold them to a Fortune 500 company for thirty times their original price and used the profits to buy a huge West Coast cable system. Fortyish, bored, and independently wealthy, he launched Umbra as the first in a series of magazines aimed at African-Americans, who for him were not a readership but a market—one that was larger and richer than entire countries in Western Europe.
No. It was not cool for him to use the word nigger, she thought. With him she couldn’t be sure it was coming from a place of love. But what could she do about it? Nothing. And what did she want to do? Nothing. He was paying her ninety grand a year to hate him.
“Close the door, Sylvia,” he began, the furrows deepening across his forehead. “We need to talk privately.”
Sylvia bit her tongue and did as she was told.
“You supervised the DeVeaux article,” he continued. “I left you alone. You used a writer that wasn’t one of ours and I left you alone. Now in this article, there’s exploration of those embezzlement charges that are being brought up against brother DeVeaux. I know he discussed them on the record, but he changed his mind afterward. I mentioned this to you some time ago. But nothing has been done. Congressman DeVeaux has fought very hard for his people all his life, Sylvia. They love that fool down there. He’s brought them more pork than there are pigs in Iowa. I know he stole the goddamn money. The government knows. I’m sure the people on Mars know too. But the black folks down in New Orleans don’t know. And they don’t wanna know.”
“Virgil, can I interrupt you for a second? When did black people sign a contract saying they wanted to be treated like children? I’m a journalist, Virgil, not a copywriter for the City of New Orleans Visitors Bureau. There are a lot of wonderful things about New Orleans. And we cover a lot of them in the feature. So why can’t we show a little of the other side as well?”
“Lemme tell you a little secret,” he said, whispering. “Black folks don’t need balance right now. They need positive images. White folks can tear down their leaders, Sylvia, but black folks can’t afford to. They have too few. I’ve told you several times but you don’t listen—you need to reorient your thinking. You need to get into the mind-set of the folks in the street. Black America is not New York. Them niggers out in Detroit and down in Atlanta are not mature enough to handle the truth. Black folks are directionless right now. And what they want are myths, ideals, heroes. Whether or not this is what they need is another issue.”
Was it really worth fighting for? she asked herself. What would winning this one achieve? He wouldn’t change. Neither would the magazine. But, Jesus Christ, if only he would let her do her job sometimes.
Virgil looked at her appraisingly. She looked away. He sliced the tip off a Romeo y Julieta.
“I know you think I’m nuts, Sylvia. But I’m telling you like it is. This isn’t Time or Newsweek or Emerge. This is Umbra. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. But as I’ve always said, black folks need dictatorship. For all his faults, Mussolini did a lot for Italy. He held that place together … And by the way, accounting says they’re missing hundreds of dollars in expense receipts for this feature. Deal with that quickly, please. It’s already becoming a problem or else they wouldn’t have told me about it. Anyway, that’s all I have to say right now. I need the chair you’re sitting on for a meeting.”
Sylvia left the office at the end of the day hating her job more than ever. To make matters worse, she got drenched on the way to the subway. When it began to rain, she put up her umbrella and a freckle-faced kid in a baseball cap grabbed it and ran away. As she chased him she tripped and fell and her skirt sailed over her head.
A homeboy with a gold tooth gave her a hand. And as she stood there thanking him in the pouring rain, he asked her if he could “fix her drawers for her.” She told him to go fuck himself and hustled underground.
At home she showere
d and changed into a white T-shirt and had more coffee with some of her cookies. Folding her legs beneath her, she sorted the wad of bills that she’d been carrying in her portfolio for the last week. Work had been hectic. So she hadn’t had a chance to take care of a few things. Which made her angry with herself. She always paid her bills on time. Her credit would have to be perfect if she wanted to buy her house. Banks decline black applicants routinely.
Working through a hierarchy, starting with American Express, she finally came to the envelope that she’d found that morning. By the time she went to bed, she’d read the letter thirty times.
Dear Sylvia,
I should’ve called you, shouldn’t I? I think writing is better though. Certainly in this case, because some things sound so silly when you say them. Actually, writing letters can be silly too. Like right now I feel silly doing this. In fact as I’m writing this I’m having visions of you in the back of a classroom, showing it to the other girls and giggling at my handwriting. No, you strike me as the type who would read it to the class from the top of the teacher’s desk.
It was really good to see you tonight. At first I felt guilty for being happy that Claire didn’t make it. But being in your company washed guilt away and replaced it with another feeling that shall remain nameless to protect the innocent.
I’m about to do something adolescent, but bear with me. It’s hard to behave like a grown-up when a woman is making you feel too giddy for your age.
When we met, I had no idea that we’d ever see each other again. And I walked away from that phone booth filled with so much sweetness—and here’s where the adolescent business comes in—like Bob must have felt when he met the person who inspired the song “Waiting in Vain.”
I have to go. I’m packing to leave. My things are all over the place. I ransacked my suitcase looking for clothes this evening. And I’m expecting company. (Yes, at this hour. Ian said he’s sending a bearer with a package for me. What can I say? Ian is Ian.) I’m going to England for the entire summer, so I won’t be seeing you soon, which is both good and bad, if you know what I mean. As I said to you tonight, I don’t handle disappointment very well.
Waiting in Vain Page 8
